ARCHIVAL NOTE. The manuscript "On the Theses on the Agrarian Question of the French Communist Party"—was written in V. I. Lenin's own hand in black ink on both sides of 8 quarter-sheets of ordinary ruled writing paper, across the page.

V. I. LENIN.

3.

ON THE THESES ON THE AGRARIAN QUESTION OF THE FRENCH COMMUNIST PARTY.

Regarding the theses on the agrarian question, printed under the signature "Deca [The Directing Committee of the French Communist Party]" in No. 95 of "Peasant Voice" (*La Voix Paysanne*), dated 19. XI. 1921, I can say the following:

The fundamental ideas of these theses appear to me entirely correct, corresponding to the decisions of the Comintern congresses, and very happily expressed, namely: (1) the necessity of revolution in order to avoid new imperialist wars; (2) the collapse of pacifist and Wilsonian ideology; (3) the unconditional necessity of creating, on the agrarian question, a "programme of transitional measures" (*un programme transitoire*) toward communism, adapted to the *voluntary* transition of peasants to the socialization of agriculture and at the same time providing *immediate* improvement in the condition of the vast majority of the rural population, wage workers and petty peasants; (4) the *immediate confiscation*, i.e., expropriation without compensation (*sans indemnite*) both of uncultivated land (*les terres arables en friche*) and of land cultivated by the labor of tenant farmers, lessees, or wage workers (*les terres mises en valeur par les colons, fermiers ou salaries*); (5) the transfer of these lands to the aggregate of workers who now cultivate them, so that these workers would form "productive cooperatives" (*cooperatives de production*), in accordance with the provisions of the new agrarian legislation; (6) the unconditional guarantee to "petty proprietors who themselves cultivate their lands" (*les petits proprietaires exploitant eux-memes*) of the right of permanent (and hereditary) use of their lands; (7) the necessity of ensuring "continuity and increase of production" in agriculture (*"continuite et augmentation de la production"*); (8) the necessity of a whole series of measures systematically carrying out "communist education of the peasantry" (*"Education communiste de la classe paysanne"*).

Being in complete agreement with these fundamental ideas of the theses, I can make only the following separate remarks regarding these theses in general:

1. The first part of the theses is devoted to the question: "war or revolution." Here it is stated, among other things, and quite justly, that recent events have killed pacifist and Wilsonian ideology (*"les évenements des dernieres années ont tué l'idéologie pacifiste et wilsonienne"*).

In order to carry through to completion the destruction of these pacifist illusions, it would be necessary, in my opinion, to speak not only of war in general, but also specifically of the imperialist character both of the war of 1914–1918 and of the war now being prepared between America and Japan, with the probable participation of England and France.

There is no doubt that only the revolution of the proletariat can put an end and will undoubtedly put an end to all wars whatsoever. But it would be a pacifist illusion to think that a victorious revolution of the proletariat in one country, say, in France, will immediately and certainly eliminate all wars.

The experience of Russia has vividly refuted this illusion. This experience has shown that only revolution could extract one from the imperialist war and that the Russian workers and peasants gained *immensely* from their revolution, *despite* the *civil war* waged against them by capitalists of all countries. To the extent that reactionary wars are criminal and ruinous, and particularly imperialist wars (to which belongs, also on the part of France, the war of 1914–1918: the Versailles Peace has shown this with especial clarity), to the same extent are revolutionary wars lawful and just—that is, wars in defense of the oppressed classes against capitalists, in defense of peoples oppressed by imperialists [a handful] a small handful of countries against their oppressors, in defense of the socialist revolution from foreign invasion. The more clearly the mass of workers and peasants of France will understand this, the less probable and the less prolonged will be the inevitable attempts of French, English, and other capitalists to suppress by war the revolution of workers and peasants in France. In contemporary Europe, after the victory of Soviet Russia over *all* the capitalist countries that supported Denikin, Kolchak, Wrangel, Yudenich, and Pilsudski,—in contemporary Europe, given the boundless and shameless strangulation of Germany by the Versailles Peace, the civil war of French capitalists against a victorious socialist revolution in France can be only very short-lived and a thousand times easier for French workers and peasants than it was for the Russians. But it is absolutely necessary to clearly distinguish between imperialist wars—wars for the division of capitalist booty, wars for the strangulation of small and weak nations—and revolutionary wars, wars for defense against counter-revolutionary capitalists, for the overthrow of their yoke.

On the basis of the considerations set forth, I would consider it more correct, instead of what is said in the theses on the question of "war or revolution," to say approximately the following:

The events of recent years have exposed all the falsehood, all the deception of pacifist and Wilsonian ideology. It is necessary to completely destroy this falsehood. The war of 1914–1918 was imperialist, predatory, reactionary not only on the part of Germany but also on the part of France; this has been shown with especial clarity by the Versailles Peace, even more brutal and vile than the Brest-Litovsk Peace. The new war that is being prepared between America and Japan (or England) and which is inevitable if capitalism persists will inevitably draw in capitalist France as well, for she is entangled in all the imperialist crimes, atrocities, and infamies of our imperialist age. Either a new war and a series of wars for the "defense" of French imperialism, or a socialist revolution—there is no other choice for the workers and peasants of France. And they will not be frightened by the references of counter-revolutionary capitalists to the severity of the civil war that they have imposed upon Soviet Russia. The workers and peasants of France were able to wage a lawful, just, revolutionary war against their feudal lords when they were strangling the great French Revolution of the eighteenth century. French workers and peasants will be able to wage such a lawful, just, and revolutionary war against French capitalists when the latter become émigrés organizing foreign invasion against the socialist French republic. It will be all the easier for French workers and peasants to crush their exploiters because *all* of Europe, torn to pieces, exhausted, balkanized by the vile Versailles Peace, will be with them both directly and indirectly.

2. I consider it incorrect, in the following part of the theses, the assertion: "the forthcoming revolution in France (*cette revolution que nous devons faire*) ... will in some sense be a premature revolution" (*sera en quelque sorte une revolution avant terme*), as well as the following assertion:

"The concentration of property, proclaimed by the theoreticians of Marxism, has not taken place regularly in agriculture" (*La concentration de la propriete annoncee par les theoriciens du marxisme ne s'est pas produite avec regularite dans l'agriculture*).

This is incorrect. And these are not the views of Marx, not the views of Marxism, but the views of those "theoreticians" of quasi-"Marxism" who brought the Second International to shameful bankruptcy in 1914. These are the views of those pseudo-Marxists who, from 1914 onward, went over to the side of "their own" national bourgeoisie and whom, in times long past, none other than Jules Guesde ridiculed so well when he wrote against Millerand that future Millerands would stand on the side of "their own" capitalists in the coming war for the division of capitalist booty.

Marx did not look in a simplified and straightforward manner at the forms of the process of concentration in agriculture. Proof—the third volume of *Capital*. Proof—Engels' article in the 1890s of the last century against the then French agrarian programme.1) Marx did not consider the revolution of the proletariat "timely" only on the condition of the expropriation of the last peasant. Let us leave such an interpretation of Marx's views to Hyndmans, Renodles, Vanderveldes, Südekums, Messrs. Turati and Serrati.

I would advise throwing out these incorrect, unnecessary, and compromising assertions for French communists. They are not necessary for proving their practically and theoretically important and correct fundamental idea, namely, that the immediate application (*l'application immediate*) of *complete* communism to the conditions of *petty* peasant farming (far from in France alone, but in all countries where there is petty peasant farming) would be *deeply* erroneous.

Instead of these incorrect assertions, it would be better to say in greater detail why the enrichment of French peasants during the war is unstable; why the money earned by these peasants during the war is depreciating; why the oppression of large banks is *intensifying* both over workers and peasants of France; what forms this intensification takes, and so forth and so on.

3. In the theses it is further stated that pre-war statistics counted in France 5,700,000 rural farms (*exploitations rurales*); of these 4,850,000 were small (up to 10 hectares) and 850,000 above 10 hectares. These figures show—it is stated in the theses—how unequally land is distributed in France. "But these figures do not provide—it is stated in the theses—any precise indication (*mais ils (ces chiffres) ne fournissent aucune precision*) ... about the relationship that exists between the size of lands worked by their owners and lands serving as a source of capitalist profit" (*...sur le rapport qui existe entre l'etendue des terres travaillees par leur proprietaire et des terres source de profit capitaliste*).

First, even those lands that are worked by their own owners serve in France (as in any other capitalist country) as a "source of capitalist profit." It would be theoretically more correct and practically more useful to discuss in the theses of the French Communist Party the forms of this profit than to assert that concentration of property does not occur "regularly" (*avec regularite*) in agriculture.

Second, it is just that French agrarian statistics are poor—worse than German, American, Swiss, and Danish statistics—and that it does not provide a *precise* determination of the *size* of the land area on which capitalist farming is conducted. It is also just, as is indicated further in the theses, the circumstance that wage workers sometimes work farms smaller than 10 hectares, while peasant proprietors sometimes work "farms of 20, 30 hectares and more" (*des fermes de 20, 30 hectares et au-dessus*).

But if not entirely precise, then at least an *approximate* idea of the size of land area under capitalist exploitation can be obtained even from French agrarian statistics. I do not have at hand either the book of Compère-Morel2) or other sources, but I remember that French statistics distinguish farms having 40 and more hectares. It would be very useful to [compare and] present these data in order to show more vividly to French petty peasants what a vast quantity of land French capitalists and landowners have seized (from workers and from them). It is possible (and, in my view, should be) shown in the agrarian theses more vividly, with figures from French agrarian statistics themselves (and with figures from Compère-Morel when he was still a socialist and not a defender of capitalists and their predatory war of 1914–1918 and their predatory Versailles Peace), what a tremendous majority of the rural population in France would gain immediately, at once, and very significantly from the proletarian revolution.

4. My final remark concerns those sections of the theses where it is said of the necessity to increase the production of agricultural products, of the importance of modern machines (*des machines modernes*), in particular such machines as threshers (*les batteuses*), motor plows (*les charrues à tracteur*), etc.

All these indications in the theses are absolutely just and practically necessary. It would only seem to me that one should not remain within the limits of what is entirely customary for capitalist technique; one should take a step further. A few words should be said about the necessity of planned and complete electrification of all France, [and] about the absolute impossibility of carrying out this work *for the benefit* of workers and peasants without the overthrow of bourgeois power, without the conquest of power by the proletariat. In French literature there is no lack of data on the importance of electrification for France. I know only that a small part of these data were cited in a work produced by commission of our government on a plan for the electrification of Russia and that after the war the technical preparation of the question of electrification has advanced greatly in France.

It is extremely important, in my opinion, both from the theoretical and from the practical-agitational point of view, to say in the theses (and in general to speak more in communist literature) about the fact that modern advanced technique imperatively demands the *electrification* of *the entire country*—*and* a *series of neighboring countries*—*according to a single plan*; that such work is entirely feasible at the present time; that agriculture and especially the peasantry would gain most from it; that, as long as capitalism and private property in the means of production remain, electrification of an entire country and a series of countries, first, cannot be rapid and planned; second, *cannot* be carried out *for the benefit* of workers and peasants. Under capitalism, electrification will inevitably lead to a strengthening of the *oppression* of *large banks* over both workers and peasants. Even before the war, not some "narrow Marxist," but Lysis himself, who now acts patriotically as lackey to the capitalists,3) proved that France is in reality a *financial oligarchy*.

France possesses magnificent possibilities for electrification. With the victory of the proletariat in France, from electrification carried out in a planned manner and without regard for the private property [of landowners,] large landowners and capitalists, will gain *gigantically*, especially *petty peasantry*. With the preservation of capitalist power it is inevitable that electrification will not be planned and rapid, and insofar as it occurs at all, it will be a new bondage for the peasants, a new slavery of peasants robbed by the "financial oligarchy."

These are the few remarks that I can make regarding the French agrarian theses, which, on the whole and in my view, are entirely correct.

N. Lenin.

11.XII. 1921.

1) The article by Engels is meant: "Die Bauernfrage in Frankreich und in Deutschland." Published in *Neue Zeit* 1894–95. I vol. No. 10.

In Russian: "The Peasant Question in France and Germany" in several editions.

2) Compère-Morel—French economist and statistician.

3) Lysis—author of the book: *Against the Financial Oligarchy in France* (*Contre l'oligarchie financière en France*). Lenin refers to this book in his *Imperialism*; pp. 277–278 in vol. XIII of the Collected Works.